Life is an adventure. To make my journey as fulfilling as it can be I have partnered up with some experts in fitness and nutrition and hope to share some useful and practical tips with you. And trust me, this journey will not be a theoretical one. I will be right there in the thick of it. Struggles and all.

Thursday, 28 February 2013

30 Day Challenge for Life and Adventures

Part III

Adventure Participant list

This challenge is going to be so much fun and I look forward to getting
to know you better and helping you along the way to self discovery. You
will be doing 6 days a week of minimum 15 minutes exercise a day of your
choosing. You can do that, it's easy, once you get into it, you will
start to look forward to your 15 minutes, trust me, the power of habit
is a strong one. Then you will be required to take a look at your
nutritional health, and you will be asked to pick 2 things on the list
to replace for the duration of the challenge. Again this is totally
do-able and you will be allowed 3 "get out of jail" cards, but more on
that later. You will also be asked to complete some beneficial homework
questions or assignments. Some will be reflective, some will just be a
whole lot of fun.

For this Challenge, we will have three components on which to focus, they are simply:

1. Motivation 2. Nutrition 3. Exercise

Here is the replacement list for the nutritional part of the challenge!REPLACEMENT GUIDE

SUGAR - Choose Coconut palm sugar,
Stevia, dates and fruit. I would avoid Agave Nectar or other sweeteners
at this time. Read more about sweeteners and their risks and more about
Stevia here.
If you are panicking about chocolate, good news, you can have 80% Dark
Chocolate, or 90 % and if you really want 100 %. Unsweetened cocoa is
good for adding to smoothies if you need a chocolate fix and it will not
give you a sugar rush. Beware of hidden sugars
like high fructose corn syrup, glucose fructose, maltodextrin and dextrose. If you are wondering if you made the right choice to kick the sugar habit,
read this.

Participant Elisabeth from San Carlos Mexico says,"Drinking
decaffeinated tea to replace the coffee has worked - no withdrawal
headaches! " and Karie- Anne from Elmira wrote, "I replaced the coffee
with green tea and water for the pop." Just a reminder, Green
tea is not caffeine free, so please be aware of that, however it is full of other beneficial ingredients.

Be warned you may experience headaches from cutting back, but keep at it
a little by little. Increase your water consumption at this time, it
will help you feel better. Take comfort that the headaches should not
last longer than a day or two. If your headaches
persist longer than a week, please see your health care provider,
unless of course you were drinking two pots a day and now are only
drinking 2 cups, that may take a little longer to adjust.

ALCOHOL - Try this instead: Sparkling water with lime and flavored water. Here are some awesome ideas too.
You HAVE To click this link! Seriously.

DAIRY- Replace with Almond Milk, Organic Soy Milk ( and Organic
ONLY) and Coconut Milk. You can also try hemp milk and rice milk. Rice
milk does not have many nutrients in it, so that would be the last
choice.

Since today (March 1,2013) is DAY 1, it is weigh in and measure day.Participants will weigh and record it, and you will measure with a tape measure. Here are the areas measured: Neck, upper right arm, chest, ribs, waist, abdomen, hip/buttock, right upper thigh, knee, calf and ankle. Here is a list of measurements and a description of each one in case you have any questions about measuring. CLICK HERE.These measurements are kept for comparisonon day 15 and day 30. Someone said once: "If you are not "assessing" you are "guessing"."

Dr. Yasmin Kelton is a mother and family physician who cares about the
health of families and women. February was Heart and Stroke month and
she did a presentation on "Heart Health" for ladies in Richmond Hill,
Ontario. I asked her to please write this short guest blog for us
because the importance of minimising your risks for heart disease and
stroke are drastically reduced when we introduce exercise. On the 30 Day Challenge Part III starting March 1st we will have the opportunity to put these things into practise.

What is in it for me?

The current
Canadian recommendation on physical activity is 150 minutes of moderate
to vigorous aerobic activity per week which can be done in segments or
10 minutes or more. It is also beneficial to add weight bearing
activities at least twice a week. It may be surprising to hear that 85%
of Canadian adults currently do not meet these recommendations. How
important is aerobic activity and what is the impact on our health?According to statistics from the Heart & Stroke Foundation of Canada
if all Canadians engaged in 60 minutes of physical activity per
day, 33% of all deaths related to coronary heart disease, 25% of deaths
related to stroke, 20% of deaths related to type 2 diabetes, and 20% of
deaths related to hypertension could be avoided. These are great reasons
to get moving and encourage one another! Consult the following websites
for more health information
and exercise guidelines at http://www.heartandstroke.on.ca/ and The CanadianSocietyfor
ExercisePhysiology at www.csep.ca.

Wednesday, 20 February 2013

WELCOME

30 Day Challenge Part III

I am excited to announce that so far we have an international contingent for PART III of our 30 Day Challenge. Welcome aboard!

If you have not signed up yet, it is not too late, you can do so my emailing me and giving me your name and city. That's all, easy as that.

START March 1, 2013

Are you ready to get started?

As you prepare yourself to get started on the 30 Day Challenge Part III I
would like to give you some tips to maximize your experience.

TIP # 1
Reduce your coffee intake to only 2 cups a day. Start now.

TIP #2
Make sure you have alternatives on hand such as Green Tea, Flavored
Green Tea, Peppermint Tea, herbal Tea and black tea. Pick a flavour that
you like. My favorite tea is Green tea with blackcurrant and Vanilla.

TIP # 3
Start getting rid of foods that you will not be eating on the challenge,
throw out those cheap and nasty valentines chocolates that look pretty,
but taste like hydrogenated fats. Out of sight, out of mind is best! Set
yourself up for success, get rid of those things that are not
nutritionally beneficial for you. Start looking at food as fuel and not
attached to an emotionally satisfying thing.

Tip # 4
Increase your water and tea intake a few days before we start.

Tip #5
Investigate exercise options that you can do on the challenge, dust off
those dumbbells, pump up that exercise ball, dig out your walking or
running shoes. You are going to need them. Download a fun playlist, set
yourself up for success. Don't wait until day 1 to say, "Okay, now what am I going to do?"

Tip # 6
Get your mind in the right place, get excited about the change you will
see, about the journey of self discovery you are about to embark on.
Think about how wonderful it is going to be to get to the end of the
challenge and feel so good about it all. You can do this, I know you
can.

Saturday, 9 February 2013

The next 30 Day Challenge (Part III) starts March 1, 2013 and this time we are combining a fitness component together with a nutritional component and it is going to be a whole lot of fun. If you are interested in signing up for it EMAIL ME by clicking here. I will be posting the rules of the challenge soon, but you may ask me, what will I get out of it.

One participant of the first 30 Day Challenge shared with me after the month was up that I had gotten her into the habit of exercising at least 15 minutes a day, she had enjoyed it so much, that she had joined her local curves and is determined to lose the weight she is carrying and has been battling with for years. All this from just walking with her dog and husband every day on the fist 30 Day Challenge! That got me really excited!

The fun part of the challenge is that people send in photos from all over the world, this one was sent in from San Carlos, Mexico. Participants receive personal encouragement from me and I answer any questions that arise. I post recipes for you to try and advice and tips on better nutrition, more effective fitness and less toxic products.

The accountability to fellow participants is a major factor in the success of these challenges and participants can encourage each other and cheer each other on. It works.

I will be introducing some new rules which will help push up the success rate and minimise the drop off rate.

If you just need that little push to get out of a rut, this challenge is for you. You may think that 30 days is too long, but let me tell you this, most participants comment at the end of the challenge how quickly the 30 days have gone and there is a tangible feeling of sadness at the end of it. They want it to go on!

Let me be clear, a 30 Day challenge is not here as a quick fix, it is here to get you out of habits, ruts and routines that may be holding you back. You will learn a few things, adjust a few things, make a few mistakes, and learn from them and you will come out of it knowing yourself a whole lot better.

You have got nothing to lose, come on, email me if you are interested.

Monday, 4 February 2013

30 Day Challenge RESULTS and TESTIMONIALS

Participants replaced certain foods with healthier options and committed to sticking to it for 30 Days being accountable to one another and to me in various forms. Some were on Facebook and others on www.sparkpeople.com, those who were not on social media kept in contact with me via email and by reading my blogs. We have reached the end of our challenge and participants have self- evaluated how they did. I posted suggested recipes and participants tried them and sent me back their photos. Here is one of the Quinoa Vegetable soup recipe made by Crystal of Regina, SK.

You would think that now that the nutritional challenge is over that I would be sitting here with a cup of coffee while I write this blog. I am not, is the challenge over? Yes. Can I have coffee if I want to? Yes. Do I want one right now? No. Will I ever have coffee again? Yes, but it will be a treat all on it's own, not a 'Stumble out of bed and grab a coffee before I am even awake' scenario. The habit is broken. Benefits to this are two fold, yes that habit of just grabbing a coffee or 9 is broken,but also as discussed before if you have been following my blogs at all, coffee interferes with your hormones and your absorption of nutrients. That is why you shouldn't have coffee with your meals, particularly if you have low Iron. (Hang on a second while pause to sip of my green tea which is full of antioxidants and other good things) SIDE NOTE: If you are someone with rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune condition,PLEASE CLICK HERE AND READ THIS NOW!I want you to know that I do each and every challenge along with participants and we are in it together. I replaced Sugar, dairy,
wheat, alcohol and soft drinks.Two cups of coffee a day went down from about 10 cups. After a week I replaced coffee with Green tea, Rooibos Tea, Yerba Mate Tea and Peppermint
tea. This Challenge was good to help me to break habits that had formed
over the holidays and I was glad to be accountable to the rest of the
ladies to keep me focused. I lost 5 pounds in total and many inches.

PARTICIPANT FEEDBACK:

Kristin - Detroit, U.S.A. She is going to curb: White processed carbs - white sugar/white flour. - She had to drop out due to a serious sinus infection and health issues. While she was in it though, she was upbeat and enthusiastic.

Sheila - Cape Town, South Africa. She is going to fight the urge to eat: Hard Cow's Milk cheeses. At the end of 30 Days she wrote, "I lost 1.3kgs - 2.86 pounds in the month. I didn't measure anything - but my day-to-day Jeans keep falling down. I'll have a go with my skinny jeans tomorrow." She also wrote,"thanks for the accountability and the encouragement - it's definitely
kept me on track - and tracking is showing me that I'm fully aware of
when I'm pushing the limits, but also making sure that I eat enough on
days when otherwise I wouldn't. Those are probably days when I drink
excessive quantities of water. I'm going to focus on reducing carbs and
increasing Protein, next month... There were a few bumps along the way with celebrations and occasions,
but no train smashes, and I never got to use my Get out of Jail card. I look forward to the next challenge,Thank you so much for the accountability - long may it last..."

Crystal from Regina, SK, Canada and she is going to start with
curbing the coffee habit. She is aiming to stay down to 1 caffeinated
cup of tea a day. She wrote,"We did it! Happy dance! I did really well on the
white carbs overall and didn't give in other than when the situation
sort of dictated it. Soda-way down consistently. Working hard to keep it that way
so I don't necessarily have to give it up totally. However, if I have
to give it up I will. Coffee - other than my one slip up early on, I
stayed off of it and kept my caffeine tea to 2 cups or less all the time
except a couple, and it was never more than 3. Feeling great!
Weight stayed the same but my tummy is definitely flatter, a lot
flatter. And bad time to be weighing in for me so maybe my weight is
down a couple of pounds. Measurements made me happy. Weight - no change; Arm - up 1/4 inch; Waist - down 1.5 inch;Leg - down 3/8 inch"

Elisabeth from San Carlos, Mexico says she is going to cut out white carbs (potatoes and rice) and coffee. After a week she cut out dairy too. And then she added in the rest of the list too. She has seen tremendous results and is now transitioning to lifestyle eating. One thing to note is that Elisabeth increased her vegetable consumption and kept her protein sources consistent. She wrote,"I would think the biggest thing that hinders people with a challenge is
their MIND. If your mind isn't in the right place to do this, it is very
hard to stick with it. It becomes too easy make excuses when you don't
have focus and it becomes a slippery slope. I know that I needed this challenge to get me focused and the accountability kept me there.Thank you for all your hard work in organising this and for all your encouragement along the way!"On the weigh in and measure day she was the participant that had lost the most weight. Not only did she do the right things, she had a positive attitudede.She wrote,"I lost 8.7 pounds and 5-1/4 inches overall.It has been a great
challenge, thanks again for leading it. Being accountable put my mind in
focus and it takes that to make it work. 'If your mind isn't in it, it isn't going to happen' I think that applies to everything we do in life."

Anna from Australia is going to be starting with white carbs. She had some major health issues part way through the challenge and had to stop, she gave her feedback nontheless: "I didn't complete the challenge but I was happy withmyself that I did cut down considerably on the whiteflour and sugar and have lost about 700 gr, so I am happy as I had a lot of antibiotics and that somehowmakes me eat. I did follow your blogs and everyone'sprogress. Congratulations Mel you are a born leader.Congratulations to everyone who participated as well."

Karie-Ann from Elmira, Canada wants to give up alcohol, pop and coffee. She wrote."I
am feeling pretty good Mel!!! I didn't get around to the exercise part, but I will stay
on with the no coffee, at least not as much as I did before!"

Bonnie from Toronto, Canada is going to to cut out alcohol and dairy.Low and behold, without realising it, she has since added coffee to her list almost by accident. Bonnie was so eager to do things right and she has a hunger to learn more. Shewrote, "This was a wonderful exercise for me to go through - I learnt a lot
about the healthier choices out there and I also learnt a lot about
myself along the way. I would love to add an exercise element to my
new diet so if you are thinking of doing another exercise challenge
please let me know!"

Betty from Vancouver Island is going to start with sugar, white carbs and alcohol. She reported,"Thanks
again for putting this challenge together for us. It was an interesting
time and it really did make me feel different about how I am going
to do things moving forward…I lost about 4-6 pounds (my scale isn’t the
best) and about 3 or 4 inches in total. The most noticeable was my
upper arm which is great. Love that."

Gail in Ottawa, CA - her challenge is as follows: first sugar (then wheat, then dairy) Gail is not new to the idea of cutting sugar and is on a journey to freedom from sugar.

Cheryl, Toronto, CA - Alcohol and to cut down on coffee and minimize sugar. "My loss was about 4.5 pounds and a few inches if you ‘add them all up’"

Mallory from Toronto is replacing White Carbs, with a view to cutting back on sugar. She wrote,"[It] feels
good to consciously choose a whole grain instead of a starchy carb,
even though I was mostly doing it anyways!! didn't really weigh in, but i
feel better mentally for sure!"

Sue from Nottingham UK is replacing sugar.

Nina in Oregon: Joining the goal by ditching sugar and flour - the white stuff. At the end of the challenge she reported,"So, here's the verdict of the challenge...No sugar/white flour.-6.8 Lbs, -4.25 inch. A much flatter stomach. I do not think the white stuff are my friends! It was a pleasure being in the challenge with you all. Thank you for being there as it really helped me stay on track. A special Thanks to Mel who made it happen!"

Glenda from Toronto, Ontario, Canada is replacing wheat. She wrote, "What I learnt from eliminating wheat: I was in Cuba
for a good portion of my 30 day challenge where large quantities of
delicious food was readily available. I ate HUGE amounts of vegetables
and fruits, fish, meat, and nuts and some cheese. I stayed away from all
baked goods, breads, and breaded food. I continued to exercise daily.
When I returned to Canada and stepped on the scale I was surprised to
see that I hadn't gained any weight despite the massive amounts of food I
ate. Now that I am back in Canada, I do eat grains, but not wheat."

Jan from Pennsdale, PA is going to replace white carbs. Jan was new to this sort of thing and she is commended for having the courage to start the challenge.

I asked participants what they thought would be the biggest hindrance to success was, and let me tell you what I have found. FEAR is what is the biggest obstacle, fear of failure and lack of believe in yourself will cripple you. For most of us on the challenge the first weeks were not easy, but we pushed through knowing we could do this and that it would be worth it in the end. Some were pleasantly surprised that it turned out to be a lot easier than they expected once they set their mind to it. THAT IS KEY: They set their mind to it. That is as simple as it is! I am going to make a few changes for the next challenge in the rules, one of them will be that if you "drop out" you will have to report to me and let me know and also explain why. This challenge has been most successful to those who have been accountable to me, to the group and to themselves. If you are battling, we want to be there to help you and encourage you. The next challenge starts on March 1st and I will have more details later. It is going to be fun and if you stick with it, you will get results!

Total Pageviews

Subscribe To Training for Life and Adventure

Follow by Email

Recipient of Circle of Moms Top 25 Blogs

Search This Blog

Melony Teague

Biography

I am a freelance writer and columnist living in Toronto, Canada. I am a mom of two young children and I am a swimmer and a runner.
In addition to staying fit I love to develop recipes to make healthy food taste great!